FDA Delivers a Broad, “Healthy” Brush for Food Marketing
For the first time in 30 years, FDA has handed the food industry a better tool for marketing their products as “healthy.” But that’s not all. The agency is also working on a seal – an FDA-approved symbol – food marketers can put on their products if they meet the agency’s definition for healthy food.
We have our doubts about whether this will take us to a better place for dietary health. Regardless, it will certainly be a win for food marketers. It’s fresh fuel for their quest to sell us ever more food that brings us pleasure and brings them money.
FDA Is All In
As McDonald’s would say, FDA is “Lovin’ It.” Commissioner Califf says “it’s critical for the future of our country that food be a vehicle for wellness.”
FDA’s deputy commissioner for food, Jim Jones, explains the agency’s enthusiasm:
“Food labeling can be a powerful tool for change. Food labeling, like ‘healthy,’ may help foster a healthier food supply if manufacturers choose to reformulate their products to meet the new definition. There’s an opportunity here for industry and others to join us in making ‘healthy’ a ubiquitous, quick signal to help people more easily build nutritious diets.”
Forget the Whole Milk
Chow Down on Trail Mix
One problem with this innovation is that it follows the human instinct to divide food into good and bad. With the new guidance, trail mix is healthy. Whole milk is not. So just wash it down with water and you’re good. Likewise, fortified white bread is out. Butter, too. But sop up all the olive oil you want with whole grain bread and you are eating healthy.
The problem is that to “build a nutritious diet” is more complicated than the naughty & nice list that guides Santa at this time of year. Some foods are healthy as staples. Others are fine in their place, but not all the time. Trail mix would be an example of this. Yet the new guidance is simply black and white. Trail mix is healthy, whole milk is not.
Sell More Food
Food companies have legions of dietitians, nutritionists, and scientists who understand all of this. But the rubber hits the road with the marketers who understand human behavior when it comes to food. And they know that a healthy seal of approval on a food product is a tool they can use to sell more. They will run with it.
In BMC Public Health, Laura Oostenbach and colleagues published a systematic review and explained why this might not have the effect FDA imagines:
“There is evidence that, while nutrition claims may lead some consumers to improve their nutrition knowledge and select healthier options, it may also lead consumers to increase food consumption and overall energy intake. This may run counter to efforts to address overweight and obesity.”
No doubt, the intentions are good. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. FDA is doing a fine job of handing the food industry a tool for marketing their products – for encouraging consumers to consume ever more of them because they are “healthy.”
Health claims are all about selling food products. Commerce comes first. Health and science are secondary. They make profits, not people, healthier.
Click here, here, here, and here for more on this move by FDA.
Self-Portrait with Brushes, painting by Edvard Munch / WikiArt
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December 22, 2024
